Episode Details

Elaine Dewar was tough. Contrary. The reporter who wrote an article that brought upon her the wrath of billionaires. It was a piece on the Reichmann family resulting in a $102 million dollar libel case that nearly killed Toronto Life Magazine. She argued against the Bering Strait theory on migration of humans to the Americas. She ruffled feathers with her views on the origins of Covid. Questioned ties between the environmental movement and big business. 

Those are just a few of the debates she sparked through her tireless investigative works.

Elaine Dewar was debated, denounced, debunked. 

Well, they tried to debunk her. She was sued and she was spied on. She hated, as she put it, "Lying liars who lied." 

Elaine Dewar, investigative reporter and author of multiple nonfiction books. Born in Saskatchewan in 1948, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer last August, and she died weeks later. She died writing. Elaine’s publisher Dan Wells and daughter Anna Dewar Gully join us today to talk about her life and that final book, Oblivious, which chronicles the medical segregation of Indigenous people and their history as non-consensual subjects in medical experimentation.

Editor’s note: Approximately halfway through the podcast, publisher Dan Wells describes Otto Schaefer as a Nazi-trained doctor who conducted experiments on Indigenous people. While not entirely incorrect, this is something of an oversimplification of a nuanced history. Elaine Dewar gives that nuance in the book, and it’s available to read in this Toronto Star excerpt. 

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Producer), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

Additional music by Audio Network

Fact checking by Julian Abraham

Photo: Danielle Dewar

More information:

• Oblivious: Residential Schools, Segregated Hospitals, and the use of Indigenous Peoples as Slaves of Race Science — Biblioasis
• With weeks to live, Elaine Dewar finished her most personal book – probing settler Canadians’ obliviousness — The Globe & Mail
• Book excerpt: The complicated legacy of Otto Schaefer and Canada’s Indigenous people — The Toronto Star
• Canada’s media lawyers wage war on “libel chill” and the power of the purse — National Magazine, Canadian Bar Association
• #186 End Of The CanLit Hustle — CANADALAND
• #715 Mommy, Where Does COVID Come From? — CANADALAND

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